Sky's First Hanukkah
by SKJC
Summary: SPD, 3 years preseries. Sky hates the holiday season, and he isn't too keen on his new roommate either, but then he discovers that people make more sense when you talk to them. Even Bridge. Can be preslash or friendship, however you want to read it.


**Notes**: Combination late Hanukkah fic and late birthday gift for Kikosai. I don't usually write Bridge. Like, at all. (Or SPD fic in general, really.) So, um, hey. I tried, and at least it's not mpreg.

**Warnings**: Some pre-slashy style fluff that can easily be read as a friendship fic.Takes some liberties with SPD goings-on as well as the timeline, but come on, was SPD's timeline pre-series that solid anyway? Uh, there's also religious references, but that's kind of the point.

**Sky's First Hanukkah**

--

_Mid-December, 2022_

Sky Tate hated Christmas. He would never understand the obsession everyone had with "the holiday season." Decorating a tree was a waste of time and energy, he had no interest in either giving or receiving any gifts, and when he tried to point out that any actual religious meaning in the holiday had been lost two or three decades ago, people looked at him like he'd just kicked their puppy.

So, he sat in the C-squad common room, pointedly ignoring the lights, tinsel, and music, peacefully reading his weapons technology textbook. It didn't help that this year just sucked. His best friend, Dru Harrington, had left the academy after being promoted and given an assignment, while he was left behind at SPD on Earth. This particular fact made Sky envious, bitter, and although he wouldn't admit it, lonely.

"Sky! Smile!"

Of course, Syd always made it a priority to make sure nobody ever got a moment's peace, he thought, when he looked up to a camera flash going off in his face.

"It's against regulations to take pictures in here, Sydney," he grumbled, looking back to the textbook.

Syd snorted and rolled her eyes. "Oh, lighten up, Sky, it's Christmas!" She sat down in the chair across from him, determined to force a smile out of him. His stony personality was really depressing sometimes.

"I hate Christmas."

"You do not! You had fun at the Christmas party last year!" Syd pouted and poked him in the kneecap pointedly. "You're just depressed because Dru's not here."

"I hated the Christmas party last year," Sky grumbled. "It was loud and obnoxious, not to mention a complete waste of time."

"Well, it's either that or you just ate the cafeteria ravioli," Syd continued, "Because you look even more sour than usual. What's your problem?"

"Besides the fact that everyone is obsessed with 'Christmas Spirit' and therefore distracted from their duties?" Sky shut the book he had been trying to read and set it down. There was no use trying to ignore Sydney Drew, Princess Extraordinaire. "Let's see. Christmas carols are the most annoying music ever created. Staring at blinking lights all day gives me a headache. And to top it off, have I mentioned yet that my new roommate is a total freak?"

"Hey, he seems nice enough." Syd shrugged and threw her hair over her shoulder. "The D-squad liked him a lot and he got promoted really fast, anyway."

"Are you kidding me?" Sky narrowed his eyes, getting irritated just thinking about the guy. "He rambles nonstop about the most annoying things. His computer is on All. The. Time. He's always standing on his head -"

"He does that in here too," Syd interrupted, giggling.

Sky was most definitely not amused. "Yeah, well, I'd rather he do it in here so I can ignore him more easily."

"Okay, so he's a little weird." Syd rolled her eyes. "What does that have to do with you hating Christmas?"

"He's got this weird-looking candleholder decoration he put up on his desk in the room." The scowl on Sky's face remained unchanged. "It looks like some kid made it out of Play-Dough and marbles."

"Hey, some of us actually like decorating for the holidays!" Syd smiled happily. "And what's wrong with a little creativity? This place is so drab and gray! I think a festive touch is what we need all year round!"

Sky groaned. He didn't even want to think about what the base would be like if Syd was allowed to decorate. Everything would probably end up covered in some kind of sparkly pink velvet or something. "I just don't know what Commander Cruger was thinking, making that guy my roommate."

Syd sighed theatrically. "Maybe he was thinking you're turning into an anti-social recluse who has to be forced to interact with other human beings," she said, sarcasm dripping almost tangibly from the words. "Give it a rest, Sky. Maybe it will help if you, y'know, actually talk to the guy." She shook her head and got up to leave, and over her shoulder, she added, "Have a conversation, like normal people do."

Sky raised an eyebrow at her retreating form, but kept the sarcastic response that formed in his head to himself. _'Yeah, we're all really normal.' _He picked the textbook back up grudgingly, at least glad to be left alone. _'But unfortunately, she's right. I have to live with him whether I like it or not.'_

--

After dinner, Sky usually took the evening free time afforded to the students at SPD to either go running, practice his shooting in one of the simulators open to C-squad cadets, or find a sparring partner in the gym. That particular evening, however, he had an essay on the history and development of laser weapons to complete, so he reluctantly headed back to the C-squad dormitories. He sighed when he opened the door to find his roommate putting candles in the weird decoration on his desk.

"Why do you only fill that thing halfway up, Carson?" Sky asked from the doorway, entering and shutting the door behind him. "There's probably spare candles in the rec room or someplace."

Bridge turned around, having put five multicolored candles into the clay contraption. "What? No, I have a whole box of candles. You start with only two and add another each night of Hannukah. You've never seen a menorah before?"

"They mentioned Hannukah in Cultural Education. That doesn't look like a menorah." Sky recalled the photos in their textbook of a couple of ornate metal pieces that looked nothing like the item on his roommate's desk.

"Oh, that's just because I made it in third grade in Hebrew school." Bridge grinned and gestured to the strange object. "It's got spots for eight candles, plus the one you use to light it with that sits up higher than the rest. That's really the important part. They can be any color and style, and made out of metal or glass or clay or wood - although wood might not be a great idea because it can catch on fire and burn." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Although I guess technically clay could burn too but I've been using this one for a long time and it hasn't so I don't know -"

Sky held up one hand. "I get the point. So, you don't celebrate Christmas?"

Bridge shrugged absently. "Most Jewish people don't. I used to know a family that put up a 'Hannukah Bush' so the kids wouldn't feel bad about missing Christmas, though. And giving presents on Hannukah has gotten really big, mostly for the same reason. But historical evidence indicates that if Christ even existed he was probably born in late spring and the festival now known as Christmas is actually based on the pagan celebration of the winter solstice -"

"Carson, you have got to learn to answer a yes or no question with either YES or NO." Sky wondered again exactly how much luck he was going to have with Syd's suggestion to talk to his exceptionally odd roommate.

"Sorry." Bridge grinned sheepishly. "Some people tell me I talk too much and that I don't know when to shut up. Call me Bridge."

"What?" Sky blinked. That was abrupt.

"My name. We're equal rank and I've lived here for two months. Call me Bridge."

"Oh. Right." Sky shrugged. Calling the other cadets by their last names was second nature to him. Syd had only managed to make him stop by insisting that 'Drew' was a boys' name and not only pouting every time he said it, but refusing to respond. "I've been at SPD for a long time. It's a reflex."

"Don't worry about it." Bridge nodded enthusiastically. "Actually I was kind of worried you don't like me. This is like, the first time you've spoken to me voluntarily outside of training."

"Um, yeah." Sky shifted uncomfortably in place for a moment. "Anyway, uh, I have some work to do... That essay for weapons tech, you know?"

"Okay, yeah, no problem." Bridge turned back to his desk and picked up the book of matches next to his computer. He toyed with the small packet for a moment before turning back around. "Hey, Sky?"

"Yeah?" Sky didn't bother to look up from the book he'd just opened on his own desk.

"Do you, ah, want to light the candles with me?"

Sky turned around in the desk chair, vaguely surprised. "I'm not Jewish," he pointed out, slightly bewildered by the question. "And to be honest, I don't even know what the point is." He really hadn't been listening in Cultural Ed that day.

Bridge shrugged, a tentative look on his face. "It doesn't matter. Hanukkah is just the commemoration of a miracle, it's not, like, a major holiday."

The first question to Sky's mind was, what constitutes a major holiday if not a miracle, but he had a feeling that would lead to another long diatribe that he didn't have time for if he was going to finish that weapons essay. "What kind of miracle?" That seemed like a safer question.

"Well.." Bridge thought about it for a moment, tapping his chin with one index finger absently. "Basically, what happened was when the Greco-Syrians occupied the land of Judea, about 2200 years ago, a king made Jews stop practicing their religion and defiled the Holy Temple by slaughtering pigs on the altar and all kinds of stuff. This group of revolutionaries called the Maccabees managed to drive them out after, like, three years of fighting."

History, dictatorships, revolutions and war made for the kind of story Sky could tolerate, and he nodded for Bridge to continue.

"Okay, so. When they got their Holy Temple back and cleaned it and re-dedicated it, they realized something." Bridge paused thoughtfully. "Although you'd think they'd have noticed it before they did, but who knows, because they..." He realized he was going off on a tangent again when Sky's attention was obviously waning, and cleared his throat. "Um, anyway, what they realized was that there was only enough of the ritual purified oil to burn the lamp there for one day, but it needed to be kept lit, and it would take a week to process more of the oil to burn."

"Why'd they have to keep it lit?" Sky asked. That didn't make any sense. "Why not just wait to light the thing until they had enough oil?"

"Because the lamp in the Temple represents the eternal light of divinity," Bridge explained. "It's important to keep it burning. So, they lit the lamp anyway with just the one day's worth of oil. The miracle is that it burned for eight entire days, long enough for them to make more."

Sky looked skeptical. "Or someone recorded it that way because it sounds better than 'we ran out of fuel,'" he remarked, but he stood up and crossed back over to Bridge's side of the room anyway. "So, what do you do?"

"It's pretty simple." Bridge struck one of the matches on the pack and used it to light the candle that sat up higher than the rest, blew out the match and set it in a little tin tray on the desk. "On the first day there's three blessings, but on the others there's only two. The first one is just for lighting candles on whatever occasion and the second has to do with the miracle of the holiday."

Sky nodded, and he watched while Bridge picked the one lit candle up and began to half-chant, half-sing in a language Sky didn't understand or recognize.

_"Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha'olam, asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Chanukah.."_ He held the single candle in both of his gloved hands while he recited the blessings, and Sky was surprised to find himself intrigued by the ritual, as well as its apparent effect on his roommate, who all of a sudden seemed very focused and content.

_"Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha'olam, she'asah nisim la'avoteinu bayamim haheim baziman hazeh..." _Bridge finished the second blessing, slowly used the candle to light the wicks of the others in the candleholder, from right to left, and set the first one back in its place carefully when he was finished.

Sky watched, awed by the tranquility that seemed almost out of place in a military base's dormitory as well as the way that the candlelight made flecks of color stand out in Bridge's grey eyes. He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding when the shorter man looked up at him again, the ritual apparently complete.

"There's some songs too," Bridge said, "but they're really more fun with other people to sing with.. And I wouldn't think you know how to read Hebrew?"

Sky shook his head, clearing the distracting thoughts from his mind. "They don't teach it here. Alien dialects are more useful to SPD cadets than any Earth language at this point."

"I know that." Bridge smiled. "It's okay. I went home for the first night so I could celebrate with my mom. I tricked out her deep-fryer last year just for this holiday."

How a deep-fryer could be 'tricked out' was something Sky was pretty sure he didn't want to know. "All right, then." He shuffled awkwardly in place for a moment. "Uh, thanks for explaining all that to me."

"No problem. You should probably do that essay, though."

"Right, right." Sky let himself watch the candlelight flicker off the highlights in Bridge's hair for a moment before turning abruptly to go sit back down at his own desk. He stared at the books for a few minutes, not really processing anything he was reading. A quick glance over his shoulder, and Bridge was still standing by his own desk, looking reflectively into the candlelight. Sky couldn't help feeling like it was wrong for something so simple to change his entire perception of another person.

"Hey, Bridge?" The sound of his own voice surprised him, and his use of the other cadet's first name surprised him even more. It certainly hadn't been intentional, but it did draw Bridge's attention from gazing into the soft light.

"Yeah?"

"How many more days is Hanukkah?"

"Well, the day begins at sundown, so we light candles for four more nights." Bridge looked for a moment as though he was about to keep talking, but wisely thought better of it.

Sky swallowed reflexively. "Would you mind if I joined you?"

"Yeah! I mean, no. I mean..." Bridge grinned widely. "I don't mind. At all."

"Okay. Thanks." As he turned back to his desk again to try and get to work, Sky couldn't help the small smile that came to his face. But there was absolutely no way Syd was ever hearing about this.

--


End file.
